"Early in the twentieth century, American anthropologist Franz Boas (1858-1942) inaugurated an important expansion of scientific investigation of the languages of native North America. As part of a broad critique of nineteenth-century evolutionary arguments he stressed the equal value of each language type and their independence from race and cultural level. He argued that each language necessarily represents an implicit classification of experience, that these classifications
vary across languages, but
that such variation probably has little effect on thought or culture.
His student Edward Sapir (1884-1939) accepted the main thrust of Boas' position but came to feel that the closely knit system of categories in a language could represent incommensurable analyses of experience with effects on speakers' conceptual view points and aesthetic interpretations. Gestalt and psychoanalytic psychology and Sapir's own literary efforts also played a role in his thinking on this issue. Sapir's concern was not with linguistic form as such (for example,
whether a language uses inflections
or not), nor with linguistic content or meaning as such (for example, whether a language could refer to a particular referent), but rather with the formal organization of meaning characteristic of a language, the regular ways meanings are constructed (for example, grammatical categories and patterns of semantic composition). Despite the suggestiveness of his formulation, Sapir provided few specific illustrations of the sorts of influences he had in mind.
Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897-1941), a gifted amateur linguist independently interested in these issues as they related to the nature of science, came into contact with Sapir in 1930 and began developing these views to a more systematic way. He analysed particular linguistic constructions, proposed mechanisms of influence, and provided empirical demonstrations of such influences on belief and behavior. However, his views on this issue are known to us largely through letters,
unpublished manuscripts and popular
pieces, which has led to considerable debate about his actual position. In this context, the one article on this issue prepared for a professional audience must be given special weight (see Whorf 1956). (1)Whorf argued that each language refers to an infinite variety of experiences with a finite array of formal categories (both lexical and grammatical) by trouping experiences together as analogically 'the same' for the purposes of speech. These categories also interrelate in a coherent way, reinforcing and complementing
one another, so as to constitute an overall interpretation of experience. Languages vary considerably not only in the basic distinctions they recognize, but also in the assemblage of thesecategories into a coherent system of reference. Thus the system of categories which each language provides to its speakers is not a common, universal system, but one peculiar to the individual language, and one which makes possible a particular 'fashion of speaking'.
But speakers tend to assume that the categories and distinctions of their language are natural, given by external reality. Further, speakers make the tacit error of assuming that elements of experience which are classed together on one or another criterion for the purposes of speech are similar in other respects as well. The crux of Whorf's argument is that these linguistic categories are used as guides in habitual thought. When speakers attempt to interpret an experience
in terms of a category available in
their language they automatically involve the other meanings implicit in that particular category (analogy) and in the overall configuration of categories in which it is embedded. And speakers regard these other meanings as being intrinsic to the original experience rather than a product of linguistic analogy. Thus, language does not so much blind speakers to some obvious reality, but rather it suggests associations which are not necessarily entailed by experience. Ultimately, these shaping forces affect not
only everyday habitual thought but also more sophisticated philosophical and scientific activity. In the absence of another language (natural or artificial) with which to talk about experience, speakers will be unlikely to recognize the conventional nature of their linguistically based understandings."
(1) "The relation of habitual thought and behavior to language" (1939) reprinted in B. L. Whorf Language, thought, and reality. Selected writings. Cambridge: Technology Press of Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1956 pp. 134-159).
From: John A. Lucy - Sapir-Whorf hypothesis - in: Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edited by Craig Edward. London, New York: Routledge 1998 pp. 471.
"The original idea, variously attributable to Humboldt, Boas, Sapir, Whorf, was that the semantic structures of different languages might be fundamentally incommensurable, with consequences for the way in which speakers of specific languages might think and act. On this view, language, thought, and culture are deeply interlocked, so that each language might be claimed to have associated with it a distinctive world view.
These ideas captured the imagination of a generation of anthropologists, psychologists, and linguists, as well as members of the general public. They had deep implications for the way anthropologists should conduct their business, suggesting that translational difficulties might lie at the heart of their discipline. However, the ideas seemed entirely and abruptly discredited by the rise of the cognitive sciences in the 1960s, which favoured a strong emphasis on the commonality
of human cognition and its basis
in human genetic endowment. This emphasis was strengthened by developments within linguistic anthropology, with the discovery of significant semantic universals in color terms, the structure of ethno-botanical nomenclature, and (arguably) kinship terms.
However, there has been a recent change of intellectual climate in psychology, linguistics, and other disciplines surrounding anthropology, as well as within linguistic anthropology, towards an intermediate position, in which more attention is paid to linguistic and cultural difference, such diversity being viewed within the context of what we have learned about universals (features shared by all languages and cultures). New work in developmental psychology, while acknowledging
underlying universal bases,
emphasizes the importance of the socio-cultural context of human development. Within sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology there has also been increasing attention to meaning and discourse, and concomitantly a growing appreciation of how interpretive differences can be rooted as much in the systematic uses of language as in its structure."
"The boldness of Whorf's formulation prompted a succession of empirical studies in America in the 1950s and early 1960s aimed at elucidating and testing what now became known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
Anthropological and linguistic studies by Trager, Hoijer, Lee, Casagrande, and others have been well reviewed elsewhere (see Lucy Language diversity and thought. A reformulation of the linguistic relativity hypothesis chapter 3; and this volume). These studies hardly touched on cognition, but in the same period a few psychologists (notably Lenneberg, Brown, Stefflre) did try to investigate the relation between lexical coding and memory, especially in the domain
of color, and found some significant correlations
(again see Lucy chapter 5). This line of work culminated, however, in the celebrated demonstration by Berlin & Kay (1969) of the language-independent saliency of "basic colors," which was taken as a decisive anti-relativist finding, and effectively terminated this tradition of investigations into the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. There followed a period in which Whorf's own views in particular became the butt of extensive criticism.
It is clear from this background that the "Sapir-Whorf" hypothesis in its classical form arose from deep historical roots but in a particular intellectual climate. Even though (it has been closely argued by Lucy op. cit.) the original hypothesis has never been thoroughly tested, the intellectual milieu had by the 1960s entirely changed. Instead of empiricism, we now have rationalistic assumptions. Instead of the basic tenets of structuralism, in which each linguistic
or social system must be understood
first in internal terms before comparison is possible, modern comparative work (especially in linguistics) tends to presume that one can isolate particular aspects or traits of a system (e.g. aspect or subjecthood) for comparison. The justification, such as it is, is that we now have the outlines of a universal structure for language and perhaps cognition, which provides the terms for comparison. It is true that the assumption of unconscious processes continues, but now the emphasis is on the unconscious nature
of nearly all systematic information processing, so that the distinctive character of Whorf's habitual thought has been submerged.
In this changed intellectual climate, and in the light of the much greater knowledge that we now have about both language and mental processing, it would be pointless to attempt to revive ideas about linguistic relativity in their original form. Nevertheless, there have been a whole range of recent intellectual shifts that make the ground more fertile for some of the original seeds to grow into new saplings. It is the purpose of this volume to explore the implications
of some of these shifts in a number of
different disciplines for our overall view of the relations between language, thinking, and society.
From: John J. Gumperz and Stephen C. Levinson - Rethinking linguistic relativity - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1996, pp. 2-3 and 6-7 (notes omitted).
HISTORICAL ROOTS OF THE SAPIR-WHORF HYPOTHESIS
"In traditional scholarship concerning the intellectual roots of the so-called Sapir -Whorf Hypothesis' -- a term perhaps first used by Harry Hoijer (1904-1976) in 1954 in a paper at a conference devoted to the subject, but probably made more widely known through John B. Carroll's (b. 1916) posthumous edition of Benjamin Lee Whorf s papers in 1956 (cf page 27) -- these are traced largely, but not exclusively, to German language theory of the 17th (e.g., Leibniz)
through the early 19th century, which, in Humboldt's version, connects the 'inner form' of a language with the particularity of a world view of the nation that speaks it. This traditional view (surveyed in Koerner 1992) has recently been challenged by Joseph (1996) and, where Whorf's work in general is concerned, by Lee (1996) in her monograph treatment of Whorfs 'theory complex' (especially Chapter 3). In this short paper the argument is made that these seemingly opposite positions concerning intellectual indebtnedness
are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but that an allowance should he made for the presence, latent or keenly felt, of two distinct but at least loosely connected layers of influence discernible in the work of North American linguists and anthropologists studying indigenous languages from Whitney to Whorf and his followers. So while the first, perhaps more general and less explicit kind of influence (at least where Whorf is concerned) derives from a fairly long-standing tradition in German philosophy of language,
appropriate room should definitely be given to the more immediate sources of the idea that one's native language determines individual and cultural patterns of thought which Joseph (1996) has documented so carefully, this idea held by Herder and, notably, by Humboldt (which he dubs the 'magic key' view), whereby language is seen as embodying the national mind and unfolding in line with the Romantic concept of history, in contrast to the other version (dubbed by him 'metaphysical garbage'), which envisions language
developing within an evolutionary view of history and which is seen as introducing obstacles to logical thought. This latter view, Joseph holds, appears to have been commonplace in Cambridge analytical philosophy, represented most prominently by Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) and Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), and in Viennese logical positivism, reflected in the Work of Rudolf Carnap (1891-1970). Joseph identifies Charles Kay Ogden (1889- 1957) as the key link between Cambridge and Vienna, whose influential
book of 1923 The Meaning of Meaning, co-authored with Ivor Armstrong Richards (1893-1979), subtitled "The influence of language on thought and of the science of symbolism", contains, Joseph demonstrates, many of the positions held by both Whorf and Sapir.
According to Joseph (1996), Sapir's positive review of the same year of Ogden and Richards' influential book marks a turning point from his view of language as a cultural product (as in his 1921 book Language, which incidentally was one of the works criticized in Ogden and Richards) to a sort of template around which the rest of culture is structured, as argued in his "The Status of Linguistics as a Science" (1929), This paper, Joseph suggests, like others
of Sapir's writings from 1923 on, takes up the rhetoric of 'metaphysical garbage' almost exclusively. Whorf in turn, drawn by Sapir to structuralism from originally mystical interests in language - beginning with his discovery in 1924 of the quasi-Cabbalistic writings of Antoine Fahre d'Olivet (1768-1825), likewise takes up this 'garbage' line, interweaving it with 'magic key' only in the two years between Sapir's death and his own. Joseph in his important, indeed ground-breaking study on the subject -- also
investigates other influences on Whorf, for instance the writings of the analytic philosopher Count Alfred Korzybski (1879-1950), founder of the General Semantics movement in the United States. As a result, my own paper, like my previous research on the subject, can be regarded as dealing more with part of the general intellectual climate that informed American scholarship during much of the 19th and the early 20th century, than with most of the direct, textually traceable sources, of the so-called Sapir-Whorf
Hypothesis that Joseph had identified." pp. 1-2
From: E. F. K. Koerner - Towards a 'full pedigree' of the 'Sapir-Whorf hipothesys'. From Locke to Lucy. In: Explorations in linguistic relativity. Edited by Pütz Martin and Verspoor Marjolijn H.John Benjamins 2000. pp. 1-24
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
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The Influence of language on culture and thought. Essays in honor of Joshua A. Fishman's sixty-fifth birthday. Edited by Cooper Robert L. and Spolsky Bernard. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter 1991.
Rethinking linguistic relativity. Edited by Gumperz John J. and Levinson Stephen C. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1996.
Contents: List of contributors VII; Acknowledgements VIII; 1. Introduction: linguistic relativity re-examined by John J. Gumperz and Stephen C. Levinson 1;
Part I. Linguistic determinism: the interface between language and thought
Introduction to Part I by John J. Gumperz and Stephen C. Levinson 21; 2. The scope of linguistic relativity: an analysis and review of empirical research 37; 3. From "thought and language" to "thinking for speaking" by Dan I. Slobin 70; 4. Intra-speaker relativity by Paul Kay 97; 5. Imaging in iron, or thought is not inner speech by Charles M. Keller and James Dixon Keller 115;
Part II. Universals and variation in language and culture
Introduction to Part II by Stephen C. Levinson 133; 6. The origins of children's spatial semantic categories: cognitive versus linguistic determinants by Melissa Bowerman 145; 7. Relativity in spatial conception and description by Stephen C. Levinson 177; 8. Cognitive limits to conceptual relativity: the limiting-case of religious ontologies by Pascal Boyer 203;
Part III. Interpretation in cultural context
Introduction to Part III by John J. Gumperz and Stephen C. Levinson 225; 9. Language form and communicative practices by William F. Hanks 232; Projections, transpositions, and relativity by John B. Haviland 271; 11. Communities, commonalities, and communication by Herbert H. Clarck 324;
Part IV. The social matrix: culture, praxis, and discourse
Introduction to Part IV by John Gumperz 359; 12. The linguistic and cultural relativity of inference by John J. Gumperz 374; 13. Linguistic resources for socializing humanity by Elinor Ochs 407; 14. When animals become "rounded" and "feminine": conceptual categories and linguistic classification in a multilingual setting by Elsa Gomez-Imbert 438; Index 470-488.
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Martin Pütz and Marjolijn H. Verspoor: Preface; Introduction IX; E.F.K. Koerner: Towards a 'full pedigree' of the 'Sapir-Whorf hypothesis': From Locke to Lucy 1; Jürgen Trabant: How relativistic are Humboldt's "Weltansichten"? 25; Penny Lee: When is 'linguistic relativity' Worf's linguistic relativity? 45; Juliane House: Linguistic relativity and translation 69; Peter Mühlhäusler: Humboldt, Whorf and the roots of ecolinguistics 89; Wallace Chafe: Loci of diversity and convergence in thought and language 101; Nick J. Enfield: On linguocentrism; Paul R. Hays: From the Jurassic dark: Linguistic relativity as evolutionary necessity 159; Sydney M. Lamb: Neuro-cognitive structure in the interplay of language and thought 173; David B. Kronenfeld: Language and thought: Collective tools for individual use 197; Gary B. Palmer and Claudia Woodman: Ontological classifiers as polycentric categories, as seen in Shona class 3 nouns 225; Robert E. MacLaury: Linguistic relativity and the plasticity of categorization: Universalism in a new key 249; Bruce Hawkins: Linguistic relativity as a function of ideological deixis 295; Linda L. Thornburg and Klaus-Uwe Panther:
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"Against recent arguments, which define alternative conceptual schemes in terms of failure of translatability and insist that since such schemes cannot be translated, they cannot be made intelligible, I argue that even if Whorf is mistaken about the Hopi, he does describe, using the same grammatical criteria as Strawson, a scheme radically different to that described in "Individual's" (our scheme). It seems appropriate to mark the difference by "alternative conceptual scheme." Further, I claim that not translation but rather a process of substitution of, or addition to, a first language is the key to understanding a radically different second language."
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Björk Ingrid. Relativizing linguistic relativity. investigating underlying assumptions about language in the neo-Whorfian literature. Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet 2008.
"This work concerns the linguistic relativity hypothesis, also known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which, in its most general form claims that 'lan-guage' influences 'thought'. Past studies into linguistic relativity have treated various aspects of both thought and language, but a growing body of literature has recently emerged, in this thesis referred to as neo-Whorfian, that empirically investigates thought and language from a cross-linguistic perspective and claims that the grammar or lexicon of a particular language influences the speakers' non-linguistic thought.
The present thesis examines the assumptions about language that underlie this claim and criticizes the neo-Whorfian arguments from the point of view that they are based on misleading notions of language. The critique focuses on the operationalization of thought, language, and culture as separate vari-ables in the neo-Whorfian empirical investigations. The neo-Whorfian stud-ies explore language primarily as 'particular languages' and investigate its role as a variable standing in a causal relation to the 'thought' variable. Tho-ught is separately examined in non-linguistic tests and found to 'correlate' with language.
As a contrast to the neo-Whorfian view of language, a few examples of other approaches to language, referred to in the thesis as sociocultural appro-aches, are reviewed. This perspective on language places emphasis on prac-tice and communication rather than on particular languages, which are vie-wed as secondary representations. It is argued that from a sociocultural per-spective, language as an integrated practice cannot be separated from tho-ught and culture. The empirical findings in the neo-Whorfian studies need not be rejected, but they should be interpreted differently. The findings of linguistic and cognitive diversity reflect different communicational practices in which language cannot be separated from non-language."
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Bloom Alfred H. The linguistic shaping of thought: a study in the impact of language on thinking in China and the West. Hillsdale: Laurence Erlbauim Associates 1981.
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The volume, edited by Preston Holder, contains a Preface (V-IX), the Introduction by Franz Boas (1911) pp. 1-79, and the essay by J. W. Powell Indian linguistic families of America North of Mexico (1891) pp. 83-221.
Reprinted 1991.
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"Presented are virtually unknown contributions to analytical philosophy by 18th and 19th century German philosophers with striking anticipations of Wittgenstein and 20th century analytical thought as well as of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity.
Language is seen in its transcendental function; ordinary language as an indispensable metalanguage. An interdependence theory of language and thought leads to regard philosophy as critique of language and cognition. Its task: the elimination of metaphysics and pseudoproblems, The clarification of concepts and the meaning of propositions. The method claims therapeutic consequences."
Cloeren Hermann J. Language and thought. German approaches to analytic philosophy in the 18th and 19th centuries. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter 1988.
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"This is the first part of a two-part essay on Benjamin Lee Whorf's linguistic relativism: the thesis that the grammatical structure of one's language "shapes" the "form" of one's thoughts. This thesis has often been treated by anthropologists, linguists, and psychologists as an empirical claim, subject to scientific investigation, and a principal aim of this essay is to assess that general view of Whorf's thesis. In this first part of the essay, a number of criticisms of Whorf's relativism are considered and are shown to rest on various misconceptions of Whorf's thesis."
Crawford T.D., "Plato's reasoning and the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis," Metaphilosophy 13: 217-227 (1982).
"The works of Plato are examined in the context of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and a number of instances are cited in which the influence of the structure of the Greek language appears to have led him into a faulty line of reasoning."
Davidson Donald, "On the very idea of a conceptual scheme," Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 47: 5-20 (1974).
Reprinted in: D. Davidson - Inquiries into truth and interpretation - Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1984, pp. 183-199.
Duval Roch, "L'hypothèse de Whorf s'applique-t-elle à la philosophie? Brève réflexion sur les heurs et malheurs du rapport de la langue à la culture avec la philosophie comme toile de fond," Horizons Philosophiques 12: 28-52 (2001).
"Intended as a commemoration of the 60th anniversary of Whorf's death, this paper reviews the revival of the thesis of linguistic relativity (the so-called "Sapir-Whorf hypothesis") in linguistics. If the demise of Whorf's hypothesis, in the early Sixties, was tantamount to an irrevocably condemnation by the philosophical community, then how should philosophers react to the rejuvenation of Whorf's hypothesis?
In my opinion philosophers should take seriously the recent attempts to reformulate that hypothesis in order to avoid oversimplifications. I challenge William Harvey, (Philosophy Today, summer 1996, pp. 273-286) by arguing that he is guilty of such an oversimplification."
Ellos William J., "Benjamin Lee Whorf and ultimate reality and meaning," Ultimate Reality and Meaning 5: 140-150 (1982).
"Surface and depth structure forms the central focal point of Whorf's creative work. In his developed system surface language-forms are called phenotypes and depth-elements are termed cryptotypes. Meaning is the interplay between the two. Penotypes are overt categories and cryptotypes are covert categories. Selective categories may be overt or covert but basically they work along lexemic lines. Modulus categories may be overt or covert but basically they work along grammatical lines. Semantic categories tend to be surface groupings of linguistic elements and hence carry no meaning."
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Fielding David, "L'hypothèse Sapir," Petite Revue de Philosophie 7: 17-46 (1986).
"There can be no coherent "Sapir-Whorf" hypothesis. Sapir's mentalism, in contrast to Whorf's associationism, is best understood in the rationalist tradition. His phonology is almost Platonist: "psychological reality" -- i.e., patterns of phonemes -- control both production and perception of speech. His anthropology is also reminiscent of Plato in its insistence on a dialectical relationship with native informants. However his epistemological insight that "syntax modulates understanding" resembles a central theme of Wittgenstein's later philosophy."
Fishman Joshua A., "A systematization of the Whorfian hypothesis," Behavioral Science 5: 323-329 (1960).
Fishman Joshua A., "The Whorfian hypothesis: varieties of valuation, confirmation and disconfirmation (First part)," International Journal of the Sociology of Language 26: 25-40 (1980).
Fishman Joshua A., "Whorfianism of the third kind: ethnolinguistic diversity as a world-wide social asset (The Whorfian hypothesis: varieties of valuation, confirmation and disconfirmation: Second part)," Language in Society 11: 1-14 (1982).
Foley William A. Anthropological linguistics. An introduction. Malden: Blackwell Publishers 1997.
Franzen Winfried, "Die sprachen und das Denken: klein Bestandsaufnahme zum Linguistischen Relativismus (Sapir-Whorf-Hypothese).," Conceptus: 3-31 (1990).
"After some general remarks both on the problem of language and thought and on the linguistic relativity debate the present state of research and discussion shall be demonstrated by two examples. The first concerns the relation between colour vision and colour terms, the second some possible differences between China and the West with respect to the linguistic and cognitive use of counterfactuals. A concluding section will contain some systematic reflections."
Goddard Cliff, "Whorf meets Wierzbicka: variation and universals in language and thinking," Language Sciences 25: 393-432 (2008).
"Probably no contemporary linguist has published as profusely on the connections between semantics, culture, and cognition as Anna Wierzbicka. This paper explores the similarities and differences between her "natural semantic metalanguage" (NSM) approach and the linguistic theory of Benjamin Lee Whorf. It shows that while some work by Wierzbicka and colleagues can be seen as "neo-Whorfian", other aspects of the NSM program are "counter-Whorfian". Issues considered include the meaning of linguistic relativity, the nature of conceptual universals and the consequences for semantic methodology, the importance of polysemy, and the scale and locus of semantic variation between languages, particularly in relation to the domain of time. Examples are drawn primarily from English, Russian, and Hopi."
Harvey William, "Linguistic relativity in French, English, and German philosophy," Philosophy Today 40: 273-288 (1996).
"The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (that grammar influences world view) is employed to explain the differences between German, French and English philosophical traditions. German philosophy's idealist, unitary and systematic tendencies are attributed to German's end-verbs, case system, root morphemes and initial qualifiers. French philosophy's dualism and rationalist analysis are ascribed to that language's more abstract signifiers and its description by progressive discrete divisions. And English philosophy's skeptical materialist empiricism is attributed to English's mixing of French and German syntax and lexicons, and to the higher incidence of passive constructions in English."
Haugen Einar. Linguistic relativity: myths and methods. In Language and thought: anthropological issues. Edited by McCormack William and Wurm Stephen. The Hague: Mouton 1977. pp. 11-28
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Edited by Michael Losonsky, translated by Peter Heath and with an introduction by Hans Aarsleff.
Second edition without Aarsleff's introduction: 1999.
Hunt Earl and Agnoli Franca, "The Whorfian hypothesis: a cognitive psychology perspective," Psychological Review 98: 377-389 (1991).
"The linguistic relativity (Whorfian) hypothesis states that language influences thought. In its strongest form, the hypothesis states that language controls both thought and perception. Several experiments have shown that this is false. The weaker form of the hypothesis, which states that language influences thought, has been held to be so vague that it is unprovable. The argument presented herein is that the weaker Whorfian hypothesis can be quantified and thus evaluated. Models of cognition developed after Whorf's day indicate ways in which thought can be influenced by cultural variations in the lexical, syntactical, semantic, and pragmatic aspects of language. Although much research remains to be done, there appears to be a great deal of truth to the linguistic relativity hypothesis. In many ways the language people speak is a guide to the language in which they think."
Imai Mutsumi and Gentner Dedre. Linguistic relativity vs. universal ontology. Cross-linguistic studies of the object/substance distinction. In What we mean and how we say it. Papers from the parasession on the correspondence of conceptual, semantic, and grammatical representations. Edited by Beals J. et al. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society 1993. pp. 171-186
Proceedings of the 29th Chicago Linguistic Society
Imai Mutsumi and Gentner Dedre, "A cross-linguistic study of early word meaning: Universal Ontology and linguistic influence," Cognition 62: 169-200 (1997).
"This research concerns how children learn the distinction between substance names and object names. Quine (1969) proposed that children learn the distinction through learning the syntactic distinctions inherent in count/mass grammar. However, Soja et al. (1991) found that English-speaking 2-year-olds, who did not seem to have acquired count/mass grammar, distinguished objects from substances in a word extension task, suggesting a pre-linguistic ontological distinction. To test whether the distinction between object names and substance names is conceptually or linguistically driven, we repeated Soja et al.'s study with English- and Japanese-speaking 2-, 2.5-, and 4-year-olds and adults. Japanese does not make a count-mass grammatical distinction: all inanimate nouns are treated alike. Thus if young Japanese children made the object-substance distinction in word meaning, this would support the early ontology position over the linguistic influence position. We used three types of standards: substances (e.g., sand in an S-shape), simple objects (e.g., a kidney-shaped piece of paraffin) and complex objects (e.g., a wood whisk). The subjects learned novel nouns in neutral syntax denoting each standard entity. They were then asked which of the two alternatives -- one matching in shape but not material and the other matching in material but not shape--would also be named by the same label. The results suggest the universal use of ontological knowledge in early word learning. Children in both languages showed differentiation between (complex) objects and substances as early as 2 years of age. However, there were also early cross-linguistic differences. American and Japanese children generalized the simple object instances and the substance instances differently. We speculate that children universally make a distinction between individuals and non-individuals in word learning but that the nature of the categories and the boundary between them is influenced by language."
Imai Mutsumi. Universal ontological knowledge and a bias toward language-specific categories in the construal of individuation. In Evidence for linguistic relativity. Edited by Niemeier Susanne and Dirven René. Philadelphia: John Benjamins 2000. pp. 139-160
Imai Mutsumi and Mazuka Reiko, "Language-relative construal of individuation constrained by universal ontology: revisiting language universals and linguistic relativity," Cognitive Science 31: 385-413 (2007).
"Objects and substances bear fundamentally different ontologies. In this article, we examine the relations between language, the ontological distinction with respect to individuation, and the world.
Specifically, in cross-linguistic developmental studies that follow Imai and Gentner (1997), we examine the question of whether language influences our thought in different forms, like (1) whether the language specific construal of entities found in a word extension context (Imai and Gentner, 1997) is also found in a nonlinguistic classification context; (2) whether the presence of labels per se, independent of the count-mass syntax, fosters ontology-based classification; (3) in what way, if at all, the count-mass syntax that accompanies a label changes English speakers' default construal of a given entity?
On the basis of the results, we argue that the ontological distinction concerning individuation is universally shared and functions as a constraint on early learning of words. At the same time, language influences one's construal of entities cross-linguistically and developmentally, and causes a temporary change of construal within a single language. We provide a detailed discussion of how each of these three ways language may affect the construal of entities, and discuss how our universally possessed knowledge interacts with language both within a single language and in cross-linguistic context."
Imai Mutsumi and Mazuka Reiko. Reevaluating linguistic relativity: language-specific categories and the role of universal ontological knowledge in the construal of individuation. In Language in mind. Advances in the study of language and thought. Edited by Gentner Dedre and Goldin-Meadow Susan. Cambridge: MIT Press 2008. pp. 429-464
Jedynak Anna. On linguistic relativism. In The Lvov-Warsaw School. The New Generation. Edited by Jadacki Jacek and Pasniczek Jacek. Amsterdam: Rodopi 2008. pp. 325-344
Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of Sciences and the Humanities, Vol. 89.
Joseph John E., "The immediate sources of the 'Sapir-Whorf hypothesis'," Historiographia Linguistica 23: 365-404 (1996).
Updated and reprinted in: From Whitney to Chomsky: essays in the history of American linguistics - Amsterdam, John Benjamins, 2002, pp. 71-105
Joseph John E. The popular (mis)interpretations of Whorf and Chomsky: what they have in common, and why they had to happen. In From Whitney to Chomsky. Essays in the history of American linguistics . Amsterdam: John Benjamins 2002. pp. 197-221
Kay Paul and Kempton Willett, "What is the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis?," American Anthropologist 86: 65-79 (1984).
Koerner Ernst Frideryk Konrad, "The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: a preliminary history and a bibliographical essay," Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 2: 173-198 (1992).
An extended and updated version is included as Chapter 10 in E. F. K. Koerner - Professing linguistic historiography - Amsterdam, John Benjamins, 1995 pp. 203-240.
Koerner Ernst Frideryk Konrad. Towards a 'full pedigree' of the 'Sapir-Whorf hipothesys'. From Locke to Lucy. In Explorations in linguistic relativity. Edited by Pütz Martin and Verspoor Marjolijn H.John Benjamins 2000. pp. 1-24
Koerner Ernst Frideryk Konrad. On the sources of the 'Sapir-Whorf hypothesis'. In Toward a history of American linguistics. London: Routledge 2002. pp. 39-62
Revised version of: The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: a preliminary history and a bibliographical essay - Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 2, 1992, pp. 173-198.
Koerner Ernst Frideryk Konrad. Immediate and not so immediate sources of the 'Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis': methodological considerations. In Linguistic historiography:. Projects & Prospects. Philadelphia: John Benjamins 2008. pp. 61-84
Kowal Kristopher H. Rhetorical implications of linguistic relativity. Theory and application to Chinese and Taiwanese interlanguages. New York: Peter Lang 1998.
Kurzon Dennis. A tale of two remedies. Equity, verb aspect and the Whorfian hypothesis. Liverpool: Deborah Charles Publication 1998.
Landesman Charles, "Does language embody a philosophical point of view?," The Review of Metaphysics 14: 617-636 (1961).
"Examining the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, the author addresses the questions whether language affects perception and whether grammatical categories affect conceptual categories. he argues that advocates of linguistic relativity have attributed to language an unjustified degree of causal efficacy and that linguistic idealism is contradicted by the results of experimental psychology. Then, considering the claimed correlation between grammatical and conceptual categories, he argues that grammar has no metaphysics and does not influence thought. The author concludes that language in use embodies a point of view only in the weak sense that relations and distinctions implicit in necessary concepts constitute a philosophical theory about reality."
Langacker Ronald W., "Semantic representations and the linguistic relativity hypothesis," Foundations of Language 14: 307-357 (1976).
In evaluating the linguistic relativity hypothesis, it is necessary to avoid using terms in such a way as to empty the hypothesis of empirical content; it is also necessary to separate related but
distinct issues. There is no reason to accept any strong version of the hypothesis when this is understood to pertain to differences in cognition due to non-universal aspects of language structure.
Generative grammarians have been led by their orientation and findings to reject the hypothesis, But their ideas on the relation between language and thought have often been confused and burdened by gratuitous assumptions. It is argued that 'semantic representations', the semantic objects determined by linguistic principles, cannot be equated with the primary structures manipulated in cognition, termed 'conceptual structures'. It is further argued, With lexical and grammatical examples from various languages, that semantic representations are not universal, even granted essential uniformity of cognition for all speakers and the viability of an informal notion of semantic equivalence between sentences."
Lee Penny, "New work on the linguistic relativity question," Historiographia Linguistica 21: 173-191 (1994).
Lee Penny. The Whorf theory complex. A critical reconstruction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins 1996.
Lohmann Johannes, "Saint Thomas et les Arabes (structures linguistiques et formes de pensée)," Revue Philosophique de Louvain: 30-44 (1976).
Lounsbury Floyd G. Language and culture. In Language and philosophy. A symposium. Edited by Hook Sidney. New York: New York University Press 1969. pp. 3-29
Lucy John A. Grammatical categories and cognition. A case study of the linguistic relativity hypothesis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1992.
Lucy John A. Language diversity and thought. A reformulation of the linguistic relativity hypothesis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1992.
Lucy John A., "Linguistic relativity," Annual Review of Anthropology 26: 291-312 (1997).
Lyon Gordon, "Language and perceptual experience," Philosophy 74: 515-534 (1999).
" This paper examines a series of experiments on recognition-memory for colors, often thought to support the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. the article argues that the hypothesis of perceptual familiarity provides a plausible, non-Whorfian explanation of the results. language is not influencing nonlinguistic perception here, since recognition-memory for perceptual simples is itself mediated by language"
Macnamara John. Linguistic relativity revisited. In The Influence of language on culture and thought. Essays in honor of Joshua A. Fishman's sixty-fifth birthday. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter 1991. pp. 45-60
Manchester Martin L. The philosophical foundations of Humboldt's linguistic doctrines. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company 1985.
Mandelbaum Maurice, "Subjective, objective, and conceptual relativisms," The Monist 62: 403-428 (1979).
"This paper is concerned with relativism regarding factual knowledge. (Relativism regarding value-judgments is not discussed.) That position is identified with the view that assertions cannot be judged true or false in themselves, but must be judged with reference to one or more aspects of the total situation in which they are made. Three forms of relativism are discussed: subjective relativism (e.g., C. A. Beard); objective relativism (e.g., J. H. Randall, jr.); conceptual relativism (e.g., B. L. Whorf; T. S. Kuhn). in each case an acceptance of arguments in favor of the position is held to involve prior commitment to a non-relativistic interpretation of some judgments concerning matters of fact; thus, the position is self-limiting."
Mannheim Bruce and Hill Jane H., "Language and world view," Annual Review of Anthropology 21: 381-406 (1992).
Marking Kasoer C., "Some qualifying remarks on linguistic relativity," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 22 (566): 573 (1962).
Miller Robert Lee. The linguistic relativity principle and Humboldtian ethnolinguistics. A history and appraisal. The Hague: Mouton 1968.
Moschonas Spiros A., "Relativism in language ideology: on Greece's latest language issues," Journal of Modern Greek Studies 22: 173-206 (2004).
"Language relativism can be associated with two major conceptions: that "each language has or is a particular spirit" and that "each language has or is a-real or imagined-territory." Spirituality and territoriality combined give rise to the ideology of a language as a realm. This ideology of Modern Greek as a regime language has become dominant after the official establishment of a
standard norm (demotic) and the resolution of the perennial "Greek Language Question." As it is evidenced by a host of "language issues" raised in the Greek newspapers since 1976, relativism has determined what counted as a "language issue" that was worth publishing, which language issues were eligible for public debates, and the extent to which language issues were allowed
to penetrate "public opinion"."
Müller-Vollmer Kurt. From sign to signification: the Herder-Humboldt controversy. In Johann Gottfried Herder: language, history, and the enlightenment. Edited by Koepke Wilhelm. Columbia: Camden House 1990. pp. 9-24
O'Neall Sean. Cultural contact and linguistic relativity among the Indians of Northwestern California. Norman: University Of Oklahoma Press 2008.
Ogden Charles Kay and Richards Ivor. The meaning of meaning; a study of the influence of language upon thought and of the science of symbolism. New York: Harcourt, Brace 1923.
Pederson Eric. Cognitive linguistics and linguistic relativity. In The Oxford Handbook of cognitive linguistics. Edited by Geeraerts Dirk and Cuyckens Hubert. New York: Oxford University Press 2007. pp. 1012-1044
Penn Julia M. Linguistic relativity versus innate ideas. The origins of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in German thought. The Hague: Mouton 1972.
Quine Willard van Orman. Word and object. Cambridge: MIT Press 1960.
Quine Willard van Orman. Natural kinds. In Ontological relativity and other essays. New York: Columbia University Press 1969. pp. 114-138
Reding Jean-Paul, "Greek and Chinese categories: a reexamination of the problem of linguistic relativism," Philosophy East and West 36 (4): 349-374 (1986).
Reding Jean-Paul, "L'utilisation philosophique de la metaphore en Grèce et en Chine: vers une metaphorologie comparée," Revue de Théologie et de Philosophie 129: 1-30 (1997).
"Everything leads us to believe that an 'exotic' language produces exotic metaphors, which in turn condition those modes of thought different from our own. Comparative analysis of a metaphorical field common to Greece and China (light and the mirror) shows that the philosophical differences do not proceed from the various material of the metaphors used, but rather from the different attitudes to language. The hypothesis of linguistic relativism far from being either weakened or confirmed by this comparative analysis, appears itself to depend on the manner in which Greek and Occidental thought conceived the relation of thought to language."
Reding Jean-Paul. Comparative essays in early Greek and Chinese rational thinking. Aldershot: Ashgate 2004.
Robins Robert H. The current relevance of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. In Universalism versus Relativism in Language and Thought. Edited by Pinxten Rik. Mouton: The Hague 1976. pp. 99-107
Proceedings of a Colloquium on the Sapir-Whorf hypotheses [sic]
Rossi-Landi Ferruccio. Ideologies of linguistic relativity. The Hague: Mouton 1973.
Ruddick Sara. Extreme relativism. In Language and philosophy. A symposium. Edited by Hook Sidney. New York: New York University Press 1969. pp. 41-47
Sapir Edward. Language. An introduction to the study of speech. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co. 1921.
Sapir Edward, "The status of linguistics as a science," Language 5: 207-214 (1929).
"The long tried methods of Indo-European linguistics have proved themselves by the success with which they have been applied to other fields, for instance Central Algonkian and Athabaskan. An increasing interest in linguistics may be noted among workers in anthropology, culture history, sociology, psychology, and philosophy. For all of them linguistics is of basic importance: its data and methods show better than those of any other discipline dealing with socialized behavior the possibility of a truly scientific study of society. Linguists should, on the other hand, become aware of what their science may mean for the interpretation of human conduct in general."
Sapir Edward. The selected writings of Edward Sapir in language, culture, and personality. Edited by Mandelbaum David Goodman. Berkeley: University of California Press 1949.
Reprinted with a new foreword by David G. Mandelbaum and an epilogue by Dell H. Hymes in 1985.
Sauer Werner, "A note on "Plato's reasoning and the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis"," Metaphilosophy 16: 235-238 (1985).
Soja Nancy, Carey Susan, and Spelke Elizabeth S., "Ontological categories guide young children's inductions of word meaning: object terms and substance terms," Cognition 38: 179-211 (2008).
"Three experiments assessed the possibility, suggested by Quine (1960, 1969) among others, that the ontology underlying natural language is induced in the course of language learning, rather than constraining learning from the beginning. Specifically, we assessed whether the ontological distinction between objects and non-solid substances conditions projection of word meanings prior to the child's mastery of count/mass syntax. Experiments 1 and 2 contrasted unfamiliar objects with unfamiliar substances in a word-learning task. Two-year-old subjects' projection of the novel word to new objects respected the shape and number of the original referent. In contrast, their projection of new words for non-solid substances ignored shape and number. There were no effects of the child's knowledge of count/mass syntax, nor of the syntactic context in which the new word was presented. Experiment 3 revealed that children's natural biases in the absence of naming do not lead to the same pattern of results. We argue that these data militate against Quine's conjecture."
Swanson J.W., "Landesman on linguistic relativity," The Review of Metaphysics 15: 336-339 (1961).
Swanson J.W., "Linguistic relativity and translation," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 22: 185-192 (1961).
"The thesis of "linguistic relativity" argued for by Whorf is by no means novel. The main elements of Whorf's views can be found as far back as the writings of Wilhelm von Humboldt, and more lately in those of Ernst Cassirer. But among those who have espoused the thesis of linguistic relativity Whorl, at least, has attempted to give some empirical content to the theory through his investigations of certain American Indian languages. And it is to the stimulation of Whorl's writings that the renewed interest in the doctrine of linguistic relativity in the last few years can be traced. In this paper I shall not attempt an exegesis of Wharf's somewhat obscure writings, but rather propose three different interpretations of the notion of linguistic relativity without attempting to relate them to Whorl's writings except in a casual way. My chief concern will be to furnish an analysis or explication of the thesis of linguistic relativity, not a study of Whorl's writings."
Thomson David S. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: worlds shaped by words. In Conformity and Conflict. Readings in cultural anthropology. Edited by McCurdy David W. and Spradley James. New York: Harper Collins 1994. pp. 79-90
Eight edition.
Walton Kendall Lewis. Linguistic relativity. In Conceptual change. Edited by Pearce Glenn and Maynard Patrick. Dordrecht: Reidel 1973. pp. 1-30
"This paper is an attempt to make sense of the idea that different languages embody or reflect different "conceptual schemes," different ways of experiencing or perceiving the world. The following (apparent) dilemma is discussed: if a language is translatable into English it cannot embody a scheme different from ours, but if it is not translatable we cannot know that it embodies a different scheme, even if it does; hence it is impossible to find examples which confirm the thesis that different languages embody different conceptual schemes.
An account of one kind of difference of conceptual scheme is developed which avoids this dilemma."
Wardy Robert. Aristotle in China. Language, categories and translation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2000.
Whorf Benjamin Lee. Language, thought, and reality. Selected writings. Cambridge: Technology Press of Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1956.
Edited and with an introduction by John B. Carroll. Foreword by Stuart Chase.
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